I love Christmas, but I hate it. I’ll bet you do too. After 57 Christmases, I have found the holiday to be ironically complex. It is the celebration of the first time God came near to us in the person of Jesus- to express love, acceptance and appreciation to us. It is joy, peace, family and love but also of stress, exhaustion, worry and even depression. So what gives?

Research shows a surge of depression amongst Americans during the holidays and if you ask any random parent on the street, she will tell you that she can’t wait for the holidays to be over. The buying, wrapping, cooking, driving, baking, shopping, parties, family tensions, mailing, school celebrations, church commitments, you name it- there’s just too much for most of us to do. How did this wonderful celebration morph into a season of high-stress for so many parents?

The answer, I believe, is that we have become brutally harsh in our expectations of others and ourselves. We want to make our children happy so we do what we learn we must do to make them happy- find the gift they are dying to have and do what we must to get it…